


A Thousand Words

by ranchelle



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M, more like Loki and Thor than Loki/Thor, writing a fic that has exactly 1000 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-09 02:49:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ranchelle/pseuds/ranchelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki paints a picture of Thor and cannot see himself in it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thousand Words

Loki admired the view from where he sat. Skoll had begun his hunt and the sun steadily rose over the courtyard. People often presumed Loki preferred a moonless night over a promising sunrise, when it was the changing of day and night he loved most. A new day was beginning and it was a warm one. He was not looking forward to it. Warm days were usually longer.

Tiny jars of paint and brushes spread on a piece of oiled leather lay on the grass beside him. He dipped a brush into a small jar of blue paint—paint he made from crushed precious gems mixed with oils he acquired from Vanaheim. With a few strokes, he painted lines of thin sky on the small canvas resting upon his lap. Taking the care to paint with the lines he had earlier sketched out with chalk and charcoal, he took up a smaller brush, dipped it into a jar of paint that resembled like liquid gold, and painted in the rising sun, whose golden light upon the earth of his canvas was like the moon's gentle light upon a lake.  
  
Then, carefully, he touched his brush upon a sketch of man.

"Brother," called out Thor, covered in a sheen of perspiration from a morning's sword practise. He took a few steps closer to Loki but did not approach. He had learnt, at the cost of singed hairs, not to disrupt Loki when his brother was engrossed in yet another strange pastime of his own invention. Thor drove his wooden blade into the ground and squatted on his haunches, leaning his elbows on the pommel of his sword, and addressed his brother, "You sit by all morning. Surely you are in need of a little exercise?"  
  
"I see no need of toy swords," replied Loki, looking up from his painting with a raised brow. "As should you. What need have you with a sword when you possess the mighty Mjolnir?"

"Do not so easily dismiss the wisdom a blade can teach," warned Thor, earning another snort from Loki. "Come, tell me what mischief you are up to now."

"Painting," said Loki. He held up the canvas at an arm's length and to admire his handiwork.  
  
"What be the subject of your art?" grinned Thor.  
  
Loki did not reply. Curiosity triumphed the threat of a singed beard and Thor approached him.

"That is a lot of sky," said Thor. His gaze rested upon the painted figure who held a hammer in the middle of a courtyard.  
  
"I have painted you wonderfully," said Loki, adding finishing touches of golden lightning from a blue sky. "Like one of Idunn's golden apple trees."  
  
"You paint well," indulged Thor. He took a closer look and added, "But it is lacking in one thing."  
  
"Enlighten me," challenged Loki.  
  
Thor stuck his finger on the still-wet painting, much to Loki's chagrin, beside the apple-tree-shaped warrior.  
  
"You."

Loki never completed the painting. The foliage was left unpainted for he had not the right shade of green in his jars. The canvas was filled with the colours of Thor's hair and eyes, sun and sky. His chest felt tight, as if a knot was within him, making it hard to breathe. He opened a window. The air was beginning to cool and a breeze picked up. As relentlessly as his brother Skoll, Hati now chased the moon.

He brushed his hand across the canvas, resting his fingers next to golden Thor. He could not see himself by Thor's side; there was no place for him there, not even in a painting. In a sudden rage, he threw open his windows and flung the canvas out as far as he could into the wild growth below.  
  
Time and decay would take it from his sight and mind.

 

* * *

 

 _The wolves do not rest_ , thought Loki as he watched the sun rising from the open window in his room. The All-father had yet to order punishment for his crimes in Asgard and Midgard. Perhaps time was needed to devise a punishment beyond his imagination. He was weary of body and mind, and welcomed the almost-forgotten smell of books and oil lamps.

A knock on his door, a moment of silence, and Thor walked in, not waiting for Loki to let him in.

"Brother," said Thor, ignoring the glare Loki was giving him. "Will you come with me to the courtyard?"

Seeing he had not much of a choice, Loki got to his feet and followed Thor out the room. Instead of mowing on ahead, Thor slowed his steps to match Loki's. They walked side by side down the hall.

"You are quiet," said Thor, his hand on Loki's shoulder. "Perhaps I am over-eager. I would see you to your room if you are not well."

"I am neither child nor maiden. Do not treat me as such," said Loki.

At the end of the hall was a short stairway to a lonely courtyard. It was a place no one would come without Thor's invitation for Thor used it as his personal training ground. Loki saw a painting mounted on the wall along the stone steps that led down to the open space. His eyes widened when he recognised it, despite it being weathered and ruined by rain and sun.

"This was amongst the many things you have tossed out your window," said Thor. "I know this to be a peculiar habit of yours."

"The painting is ruined, and yet..." Loki trailed off. The Thor he had painted still commanded attention despite the yellow smudged and gone at the edges. The gold had bled into the blue and the bright colours dominated no more. Next to the painting of Thor were smudges of a colour born and bled from sun and sky. A new colour that had never been and was not supposed to be there.

Thor's smile was gentle and sad as he said, "'Tis a beautiful green where the sun and sky meets."


End file.
